[Sca-cooks] "Fabulous Feasts"

[Johnna Holloway]

Actually Fabulous Feasts is just one of a number of books
that appeared in that time period.
The chronology of cookbooks (and books on medieval foods in the case of 
Henisch) that I researched for a class
on titled
Cookery Books Then and Now -- Society Favorites Through the Decades
{Do You Remember When Lorna Sass Published To the King’s Taste?}

includes these volumes for 1975-1976:
1975. Cooking and Eating, A Pictorial History With Recipes, Katie 
Stewart. Revised & republished under the title: Wild Blackberry Cobbler 
and Other Old-Fashioned Recipes in 1984.
1975. The Renaissance Cookbook Historical Perspectives through Cookery, 
Berengario delle Cinqueterre. Copyrighted to Barringer A. Fifield. [Pub. 
In Indiana.]
1975. To the King's Taste: Richard II's Book of Feasts and Recipes,* 
*Lorna Sass, 1975. U.K. edition, 1976; St. Martin’s edition, 1984.
1976. Dining with William Shakespeare, Madge Lorwin, 1976.
1976. Fabulous Feasts, Madeleine Pelner Cosman, 1976.
1976. Fast and Feast, Food in Medieval Society, Bridget Ann Henisch, 
1976, 1986.
1976. Pleyn Delit, Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, Constance Hieatt 
and Sharon Butler. Revised & reprinted in paperback in 1979. The 1996 
second edition is credited to Hieatt, Brenda Hosington, and Butler.
1976. Sallets, Humbles & Shrewsbury Cakes, Ruth Anne Beebe. 1976, 1977, 
2002.
1976. To the Queen’s Taste: Elizabethan Feasts and Recipes, Lorna Sass,. 
U.K.: 1977.

Fabulous Feasts was written of course because its author was attached to 
Cloisters and
it was thought that the book would sell. It actually received nominations
for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. It was a coffee 
table book back when cookbooks
weren't as elaborately illustrated as they are today. It certainly 
wasn't published for the minor SCA market in 1976.
It was published for the general gift book market, libraries, and the 
museum shop market.
It has always been out there in museum gift shops
because it has remained in print and been on sale constantly since it 
first appeared.
The paperback costs more today than the hardback did when it was first 
released.

I would credit Pleyn Delit with being more influential, but what do I 
know? I've only
been around in the Society since August 73. I did have the opportunity, 
though, to collect these all
as first editions.

Johnnae

Nick Sasso wrote:
> BOTH books have value in and of themselves, from my side of the proverbial
> tracks.  Fab Feasts is the early incarnation of the desire for more
> historically anchored meals in the SCA hobby.  The research and recipe
> construction lacks the sophistication of the current corpus, some 30 years
> later, but needs a tip of the hat as being part of the development of what
> we do today.
> niccolo difrancesco
> (learned: hot wok . . . cold oil . . . food won't stick)
>
>